Locals on the island of Schinousa — where a massive collection of illegal antiquities at a villa has been uncovered — revealed over the weekend that work on the site has been going on for some 30 years, while police are examining the possibility that it was a hub for an international smuggling ring.

Officers and archaeologists continued over the weekend to search through the hundreds of antiquities as suspicions grew that authorities may have uncovered part of major international ring trading in illegal antiquities, sources said.

Residents of the island, south of Naxos, told Skai TV that construction at the vast villa complex has been almost constant for the last three decades. Aerial photos obtained by Skai TV show that the villa is in a cove and is surrounded by huge walls and guard dogs.

Sources said that the questioning of two suspects in connection with another case last month, when police seized illegal antiquities in two homes on the island of Paros, led them to Schinousa.

One of the homes belonged to Marion True, a former curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, who is on trial in Rome over objects allegedly stolen from Italy.

Sources said the villa in Schinousa was being used by Despina Papadimitriou, the sister of the late Christos Michailidis, an antiquities dealer and a member of a wealthy shipping family. Papadimitriou lives in London.